Santorum, Obama and CNN Team Up

CNN is currently headlining: “Ticker: Romney’s Big Stumble.” Wow. What was the big stumble? CNN explains:

Mitt Romney’s campaign scrambled to clean up another unforced error by their candidate…

Another! Got that?

…Wednesday after he came out against a controversial amendment pushed by Senate Republicans that would allow employers to opt out of health care coverage they disagree with on moral grounds.

Romney’s statement, which came in an afternoon interview with Ohio News Network, quickly reverberated around the Internet and prompted Romney’s campaign to clarify that the opposite was true, and that the former Massachusetts governor, in fact, supports the legislation.

In the sit down interview with Ohio’s ONN, Romney was asked whether he supported the Blunt measure.

“The issue of birth control, contraception, Blunt-Rubio is being debated, I believe, later this week. It deals with banning or allowing employers to ban providing female contraception,” asked the reporter, Jim Heath. “Have you taken a position on it? He (Santorum) said he was for that, we’ll talk about personhood in a second; but he’s for that, have you taken a position?”

Romney responded: “I’m not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a women, husband and wife, I’m not going there.”

Not only did the Santorum campaign immediately send out an email blast to the effect that Romney opposes the Blunt bill, the Obama campaign also accused him of “flip-flopping.” This is beyond stupid. The reporter ignorantly mis-described the Blunt-Rubio bill. It does not “ban” anything. Romney responded to the reporter’s description rather than the bill’s name.

But the idea that Romney agrees with the Obama administration’s First Amendment violation is absurd. Far from agreeing with it, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner attacking the HHS rule nearly four weeks ago:

On January 20, 2012, the Obama administration affirmed a rule that would force Roman Catholic hospitals, charities, and universities to purchase health insurance for their employees that includes coverage for contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization, in violation of their religious principles. This is wrong.

My own view is clear. I stand with the Catholic Bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation. I am committed to overturning Obamacare root and branch. If I am elected President, on day one of my administration I will issue an executive order directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a waiver from its requirements to all 50 states. And on day one I will eliminate the Obama administration rule that compels religious institutions to violate the tenets of their own faith. Such rules don?t belong in the America that I believe in.

Romney couldn’t be clearer on this issue. Any time you see Rick Santorum and Barack Obama agreeing on something, with CNN cheering them on, you know you want to get on the other side as quickly as possible.